Francisco Alvarez’s ‘energy’, JD Martinez’s knowledge again strengthens the Mets

With two outs in the top half of the 10th inning, the Mets We were still looking for a little more offense to help the bullpen’s stretched rearguard breathe a little. With a runner in second, Francisco Álvarez threw a 98 mph fastball the other way for a triple, the first of his career.

“He’s always on the move,” manager Carlos Mendoza said about the second-year catcher after the Mets held on for 9-7 victory over the Washington Nationals on Monday night.

“I thought that ball was going to be a home run and when I saw him going to third base I was impressed,” the coach continued. “But that’s how he is. This is a kid who is always playing very hard, with a lot of energy and you saw the emotion there when he got to third base. Yes, we see that [on] both sides of the play, when he’s on the bench, when he’s in the locker room. He plays with joy, with passion and that means a lot to all of us.”

“I really liked the triple,” Alvarez said.

The catcher said he is “always looking” for that opportunity for a triple and wanted to get one to show he is “faster than Marcos Vientos” because “he didn’t have a triple” yet.

Alvarez homered first in the sixth inning, notching a two-out, two-run double to give the Mets a 3-1 lead. It was then that Vientos collected his second hit of the night with a two-out RBI single.

“Super important,” Mendoza said of the impact Alvarez and Vientos had on the turn of the season. “They are right in the middle of it. There’s a reason why we started playing better and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these two have contributed with how they’re doing it offensively, it’s pretty impressive.

“They’re more mature and they continue to make adjustments because the league is going to adjust to them and we see how they’re pitching to them and their hitting, their approach. Credit to them, obviously.”

The coach is not the only one to praise Alvarez and Vientos.

“I think it’s just their ability to step up in those situations where they’ve been facing difficult situations lately and they’re facing it without fear,” the veteran said. JD Martinez he said when asked what impressed him most about the duo.

And, of course, while the youth follows its path. The old man in the clubhouse again showed his value to the Mets on Monday night when the veteran hit an 0-2 game splitter in the 10th inning of Harvey Hunter and connected for a 420-foot, three-run home run that put New York ahead for good.

“I’m just trying to get something up because the last thing I want to do is hit the splitter in the dirt,” the 36-year-old said of his home run. “He threw that fastball up and I felt like I was capable of missing it, so I was just trying to get something up and not chase it.”

The back-and-forth journeyman snapped Martinez out of an 0-for-12 skid amid a rough patch that saw him go 4-for-26 over his last six games.

“I didn’t even know I was 0 for 12, honestly,” Martinez said. “Obviously I’m just struggling a little bit right now, just trying to figure it out. I think for me it’s just my meeting, the rhythm of my meeting right now is a little off and it’s making my swing break in certain places.

“So it’s just one of those things where you just have to try to figure out ways every night to help the team win until I can really figure it out.”

His manager thought DH was “a little off today,” but he still got some walks.

“I thought today was basically first at bats, he was a little late and still found a way to walk a few times,” Mendoza said. “And then obviously that extra three-run home run was huge. That tells you all you need to know how good of a hitter he is [he is]. He’ll tell you pretty much the same thing, but he’s working now and still walks two, three-run homers – that’s what great hitters do.

And although he has yet to play an inning on the field, the veteran’s impact isn’t limited to what happens in the batter’s box.

“It’s huge,” Mendoza said of his impact on the club, including the young players in the squad. “Whether it’s face-to-face conversations in here, in the cages, during batting practice around the cage, just talking about approach, drills, him asking the hitting coaches questions, the hitting coaches getting feedback from him.

“I think it was good that we came here and obviously JD is a big part of that.”

Of course, a win and nine races is one thing, but the night wasn’t pretty – since Tyron TaylorBH’s error hitting to right allowed the Nationals to score the tying run in the eighth for a tricky ending in the 10th inning that saw the go-ahead run reach base.

“A win is a win, right?” Mendoza said with a laugh when asked to summarize Monday’s game.

“It was difficult for us at the beginning with [MacKenzie Gore]. We were having a hard time getting to the fastball. We hit some balls hard, but we couldn’t put together much. Obviously better hitting against the bullpen and then in extras,” he said, referring to the Washington starter who held the visitors to five hits in 5.2 innings. “After the three-run home run he continued to hit really well, continued to put pressure on, and that was the difference in the game.”

The victory put the Mets back to .500 after 82 games of the season.